Wednesday, March 20, 2013

7. Taking Michael Saunders Over Mike Trout in a 2011 Minor-League Draft
No, I never predicted that Michael Saunders would have the better career than Mike Trout. It was the second round of my home league’s farm draft, and the two names at the top of my list were Saunders and Trout. I had already selected Martin Perez with my first pick and didn’t want to add to my risk profile with a prospect as far away as Trout. My initial rankings had Trout ahead of Saunders, but I looked at Trout’s age and blinked. Saunders isn’t a complete zero in fantasy baseball, but, obviously, I’d love to own Mike Trout for the next three years. —Mike Gianella

8. Roy Halladay was Going to Stink Again and Again and Again
Upon discovering Voros McCracken’s (now famous) piece explaining how pitchers had limited control on allowing hits on balls in play, I thought I’d stumbled onto the secret to my bar-gument dominance. Like anyone who only partially understood the underlying theory might do, I gripped onto strikeout rate (K/9 specifically) as a proxy for pitcher quality. A series of unfortunate events prevented me from being “right” about Chien-Ming Wang’s demise, but I was convinced that a declining strikeout rate was the beginning of the end for a young(er) Roy Halladay after 2004… and 2005, and 2006. Boy, is my face red. —Tim Collins

10. Shawn Chacon Turned a Corner with the Yankees
The Yankees were—as they often seem to be—desperate for starters leading up to the 2005 trade deadline. The team had munched its way through the likes of Darrell May and Tim Redding in one start apiece, and general manager Brian Cashman’s starting rotation resembled a badly-sewn patchwork quilt. But in July, lightning struck for the Bombers. Twice. First, Aaron Small emerged from journeyman obscurity to go 10-0 in 15 starts down the stretch, and Cashman dealt for the Rockies’ Shawn Chacon.

If Small was the Yankees’ walking miracle, Chacon was the second coming, hurling 79 innings down the stretch and going 7-3 with a 2.85 ERA (though FIP gives him a much uglier 4.56 mark). As a 14-year-old, I didn’t pay much attention to sabermetrics. If I had, maybe I would have pointed to Chacon’s low strikeout rate and high walk rate as two major red flags that could prevent him from repeating his post-All-Star break performance. Whoops. Instead, I was more than happy to proclaim Cashman a genius and dub Chacon a superb starter who had definitely turned a corner once he was fitted for pinstripes. Sadly, that was not the case; Chacon was consistently bombed in 2006, a Pirate by the trade deadline, and later became more famous for beating up Astros then-general manager Ed Wade in a clubhouse confrontation. —Stephani Bee

11. Chris Carpenter for 2013 Comeback Player of the Year
You don’t have to look long to find one of my worst predictions. In January, I offered Chris Carpenter as a Comeback Player of the Year candidate. Given that Carp had effectively missed four full seasons with injuries (2003, 2007-08 and 2012), it was something of a leap to pencil him in for anything, even a comeback award. His 2013 PECOTA forecast wisely limited him to 50 innings.

So it’s no surprise that just two weeks later, before spring training had even begun, the Cardinals announced their longtime ace would not pitch in 2013. Carpenter had halted his off-season throwing program after the return of numbness in his shoulder, a condition that required surgery in 2012 and kept him out of action for most of the year. Carpenter made an appearance at the Cards’ Florida training complex this week, but as part of a family vacation. After 20 years as a pro, 2,171 major-league innings and nine surgeries, he has earned it. —Jeff Euston

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A series of unfortunate events prevented me from being “right” about Chien-Ming Wang’s demise, but I was convinced that a declining strikeout rate was the beginning of the end for a young(er) Roy Halladay after 2004… and 2005, and 2006. Boy, is my face red. —Tim Collins

It seems like many of these date back to the writers' college and high school days. That's not as interesting as failed predictions from when they were actually writing for b-pro, when you could assume they had better knowledge.

Admission- my first fantasy baseball draft, I needed a backup third baseman. All halfway decent MLB third basemen were gone, so I decided to go with a prospect who would probably get called up. I narrowed it down to two, and I chose Pedro Feliz- instead of Albert Pujols. And yes, it was a keeper league...

I only wish it hads been during my college years- I was in my late 30's at the time, and had written about baseball off and on for a few years beforehand. Doh!

If Small was the Yankees’ walking miracle, Chacon was the second coming, hurling 79 innings down the stretch and going 7-3 with a 2.85 ERA (though FIP gives him a much uglier 4.56 mark). As a 14-year-old, I didn’t pay much attention to sabermetrics. If I had, maybe I would have pointed to Chacon’s low strikeout rate and high walk rate as two major red flags

Gee, we're including mistaken predictions from when we were 14? Was there nothing more recent?

If Small was the Yankees’ walking miracle, Chacon was the second coming, hurling 79 innings down the stretch and going 7-3 with a 2.85 ERA (though FIP gives him a much uglier 4.56 mark). As a 14-year-old, I didn’t pay much attention to sabermetrics. If I had, maybe I would have pointed to Chacon’s low strikeout rate and high walk rate as two major red flags

Wait, he was 14 years old then? But that JUST HAPPENED! Jeez, I'm getting old.

So this is only bad predictions made at some point by current B-Pro writers, and not predictions of things that actually appeared in B-Pro? Because writing an entire preview of the 2002 AL West (a division with only four teams, mind you), and completely fail to even mention one of the teams, even just to brush them off is pretty bad. It's ESPECIALLY bad when that team, whose chances of winning were so non-existent that they didn't get mentioned in the season preview, goes on to win the World Series. It doesn't help when you follow that up with a column devoted entirely to how that team (the one that won the World Series) has absolutely no chance to be successful.

Not baseball-related, but back in '78, in a fanzine review of Talking Heads' second album, I opined that anyone who took the band's cover of "Take Me to the River" as indicating any sort of real interest in funk/soul was living in a fantasy world.

BP should have an article with their top 10 mistaken predictions, and their top 10 great predictions. That would be interesting to read. This "Oh, I once thought the Easter Bunny was real and babies came from storks" stuff for the most part isn't.

Wouldn't be hard to pull a list together. They can have their readers chime in. Any outfit that makes predictions/projections is going to be wrong a fair amount of time, so there's no shame in it.

One of my favorites was when they predicted over and over again that David Wells was about to fall off a cliff.

If Small was the Yankees’ walking miracle, Chacon was the second coming, hurling 79 innings down the stretch and going 7-3 with a 2.85 ERA (though FIP gives him a much uglier 4.56 mark). As a 14-year-old, I didn’t pay much attention to sabermetrics. If I had, maybe I would have pointed to Chacon’s low strikeout rate and high walk rate as two major red flags

Gee, we're including mistaken predictions from when we were 14? Was there nothing more recent?

Jesus he was 14 when Chacon pitched for the Yankees? Wasn't 2005 like...two years ago?

Having just watched VP candidate Richard Nixon's 1952 "Checkers" speech on TV, my parents turned to each other and breathed a sigh of relief, agreeing that after that disaster, Nixon's political career was over.

In the spring of 1998, I turned down a straight-up offer of Bobby Abreu for Jon Nunnally.
In the spring of 2003, I turned down Albert Pujols for Adam Dunn and Ramon Ortiz.
In the spring of 2010, I turned down Mike Trout for Mike Carp.

I was an adult for all these trades. Not a very smart adult, obviously. I've missed some opportunities.

At the end of the season I like to pretend I'm Bill James circa 1983 and write little comments for all the players. No one reads it except for myself, but I find it's a good source to refer back and see what I thought of certain players over time.

The 2011-2012 off-season had a couple doozies.

Edwin Encarnacion was off a bit:
"Every year Encarnacion shows just enough power to keep teams interested. Though not enough to justify a spot in the starting nine considering his rather obvious flaws. Encarnacion is a lefty masher with no defensive value whatsoever. In the days of the short bullpen and the long bench that’s a useful player. But quite frankly there just isn’t enough room on a 21st century roster for a player of such narrow skills. I expect he’ll hit 20 HRs and everyone in Toronto will pat themselves on the back for keeping him around."

On Wilson Ramos:
"Ramos is a bit of an over-looked player on a Nationals team with some once (or twice) in a lifetime prospects, but seeing as he’s already a solid player and doesn’t hit free agency until 2016 Ramos should be a core piece of the first contending Nationals team in a couple years."

Kelly Johnson's is painful:
Over the next three or four years I think he has a better chance of being a worthwhile player than Aaron Hill who I think, at his best, is a better player than Johnson, but at his worst, is much, much worse.

Ian Desmond:
He’s a player you keep running out there because there’s a chance he could turn into something. Especially a team like the Nationals who can afford to try and catch lightning in a bottle at the moment. Unfortunately he’s looking like Orlando Cabrera without the glove…which is not a good player.

Drew Stubbs:
As it is, he was merely an average player in a down year. I expect he’ll be a fine player, warts and all, for the foreseeable future.

For Jose Bautista I lifted this quote from somewhere (though for the life of me I cannot recall where)

"Whatever his antecedents he was something wholly other than their sum, nor was there any system by which to divide him back into his origins for he would not go. Whoever would seek out his history through what unraveling of loins and ledgerbooks must stand at last darkened and dumb at the shore of a void without terminus or origin."

And another poem on the subject of Luke Hochevar, which sadly I don't think I can blame anyone other than myself for producing

Hopes were high (though God knows why)
As Hochevar took the mound on Opening Day
That the label “ace” may stick to the first overall pick
But the Royals lost in the regular way, with shoddy baseball play
And the fans doth barely restrain their sick

Having just watched VP candidate Richard Nixon's 1952 "Checkers" speech on TV, my parents turned to each other and breathed a sigh of relief, agreeing that after that disaster, Nixon's political career was over.

I'd always thought his political career ended with this quote, made after losing the CA gubernatorial race (in 1962):

"You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference"

At the end of the season I like to pretend I'm Bill James circa 1983 and write little comments for all the players. No one reads it except for myself, but I find it's a good source to refer back and see what I thought of certain players over time.

I do shadow drafts. I thought Kurt Suzuki and JA Happ were worthy of later round picks. I also thought Kenny Baugh and Cesar Carillo were first round picks, and Brad Lincoln was the best pitcher in the 2006 draft over Lincecum and Kershaw.

I do shadow drafts. I thought Kurt Suzuki and JA Happ were worthy of later round picks. I also thought Kenny Baugh and Cesar Carillo were first round picks, and Brad Lincoln was the best pitcher in the 2006 draft over Lincecum and Kershaw.

I have shadowed Stetson Allie in the top 10 picks, Jack McGeary in the 2nd round and Reese Havens in the first.

Who wouldn't think Gregg Jefferies would be a star? He destroyed AA ball at age 19, and then had a terrific September-October cup of coffee (including postseason). It was hard not to be excited. And then he did end up being a decent MLB player, really.

I think Prospectus had Andy Marte as the #1 prospect one year. Now that's a complete failure; a guy who did nothing. I don't think prospect projection should really count here, though. No one can do that for any length of time without huge misses. It might be more fair to criticize BP for putting Josh Phelps on the cover.... but I guess putting someone on the cover isn't necessarily equivalent to a claim that the guy is a great player.

The best bad predictions are of course when the predictor is insufferably obnoxious about it, e.g. Dave Cameron on Cano or Mike Morse (and if he finally becomes right about Morse now that Morse is back on the Mariners, it'll be even better.)

In Rotisserie league, I released Barry Bonds as a rookie. This guy is hitting .220; that sucks! (It didn't even make sense for that one year; his steals and homers were still very valuable in Roto. Damn Chadwick Ratio.) I also saw Albert Pujols fall to 24th in a 24-team rookie draft -- i.e., the best team got him -- while I picked Luis Rivas 8th. But again, that's the prospect thing.

The best bad predictions are of course when the predictor is insufferably obnoxious about it, e.g. Dave Cameron on Cano or Mike Morse (and if Morse stinks for the Mariners while John Jaso is good for the A's, that'll be especially great.)

My favorite bad predictions are when the predictor is almost immediately proved wrong (Cameron on the 2010 Rockies, moments before they went in the tank for the remainder of the season or Bernie Miklasz later in the year on the Reds being done after getting swept by the Cards in the Kickin' Cueto series).

Ian Desmond:
He’s a player you keep running out there because there’s a chance he could turn into something. Especially a team like the Nationals who can afford to try and catch lightning in a bottle at the moment. Unfortunately he’s looking like Orlando Cabrera without the glove…which is not a good player.

i was listening to some guy named rubin on the local sports radio station last night, and he claimed that desmond was going to be the MVP this year. i had kind of a stroke sometime after i heard him say that, but i think his reasoning was something along the lines of "he hit .250 with 8 homeruns two years ago and he hit .290 with 25 homeruns last year, so if he continues to improve at that rate, he'll be the best player by a mile".

I thought Harris was compared to Pujols (both minor-league 3B), and that it was at least prefaced by a "don't get us wrong, we're not saying he's as GOOD as Pujols, but..." disclaimer. Can we get the quote here?

When I got to the Brendan Harris write-up and looked at his numbers carefully, a strange sensation came over me. (Go ahead, Derek--make an Aussie crack; it's good to get it out of your system.) I checked the numbers, and lo and behold...well, look it up yourself:

Brendan Harris, 2002 = Albert Pujols, 2000

There are some differences--notably that Harris was a classification higher than Pujols--but the raw numbers are eerily similar. Harris is the biggest sleeper prospect in the game, and I was compelled to move him into our Top 20.

I don't think I have any written evidence, but I remember thinking, Jose Bautista for Robinzon Diaz? Sure the odds are long that Diaz will never make it...but he is still 24. I'm pretty sure Bautista's already had his shot and we know he's not a major league player.

My favorite bad predictions are when the predictor is almost immediately proved wrong (Cameron on the 2010 Rockies, moments before they went in the tank for the remainder of the season or Bernie Miklasz later in the year on the Reds being done after getting swept by the Cards in the Kickin' Cueto series).

Ideally, I think you want a combination of immediately being proved wrong and hilarious arrogance. If you gets someone sounding off about how ridiculous other people are, and then they're instantly smacked down by reality, that's the best. Like that podcast jsut before the 2008 Super Bowl where Bill Simmons and Aaron Schatz assured the world that anyone who picked against the Patriots was just doing it as a joke or something. Hubris, immediately corrected, is always funny.

i had kind of a stroke sometime after i heard him say that, but i think his reasoning was something along the lines of "he hit .250 with 8 homeruns two years ago and he hit .290 with 25 homeruns last year, so if he continues to improve at that rate, he'll be the best player by a mile".

Bizzarely, I managed to see about 23 of Desmond's 25 home runs last year. Seems like every time I turned on the TV he was smashing one. So if I just double my viewing, he's down for 50 home runs.

Memory tells me that very few Primates who had anything to say about the matter thought it was a good idea for their respective teams to get rid of future UPS* like Wily Mo Pena & Lastings Milledge.

*Useless pieces of ####

Milledge wasn't a useless piece of #### in Pittsburgh. He was a nice kid, fun to watch and enthusiastic about the game. He didn't play particularly well, admittedly, but he wasn't even close to the worst guy on those Pirates teams, either.

Who the #### would ever want this iPad thing? It's too heavy to bring with you, it's too cramped to use at home. They'll sell a few to fans and gizmo freaks.

The finest moment in the history of Slashdot occurred on October 23, 2001, when an editor prefaced the story "Apple releases iPod" with this observation: "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."

One of the first things I ever posted on this site, in the old Transaction Oracle, was the opinion that the Pirates didn't do all that badly in the recent Jason Schmidt trade.

When the Braves traded Jason Schmidt and Ron Wright to the Pirates for Denny Neagle, I was convinced that the Pirates would win the trade because Wright was going to hit 400+ home runs in the majors. Alas, his back exploded and his career consisted of one game of 3 ABs that resulted in 6 outs.

Long ago, a friend pointed out to me that, while I occasionally will admit it, I almost always say "you're right" not "I'm wrong." :-)

I got Arroyo for Pena right. That was one that somebody got colossally wrong, I think it was someone at BPro, who was so awed by Pena's power that they found some stat he shared with Babe Ruth. In fact I think that was the start of my "ahem, he strikes out all the time" crusade. And that "everybody needs 6 starters."

I was one of the people predicting Glavine's demise for about 10 straight years. Took me a while but I was right in the end!

Alas, his back exploded and his career consisted of one game of 3 ABs that resulted in 6 outs.

It's even worse than that. While Wright was having an operation to correct the back problem, the surgeon accidentally severed one of the major nerves in his leg. It's a miracle that he made it to the majors at all.

The best part is that down in the comments, there's this, and I think it's from Dave Cameron, although I could be wrong:

Lester isn’t even the best LHP prospect this year. I’d rather have Francisco Liriano or Scott Olsen, and it’s not particularly close. Claiming he’s the best left handed pitching prospect in the past ten years is a total joke and shoots down any credibility you were hoping to establish.

Ideally, I think you want a combination of immediately being proved wrong and hilarious arrogance. If you gets someone sounding off about how ridiculous other people are, and then they're instantly smacked down by reality, that's the best. Like that podcast jsut before the 2008 Super Bowl where Bill Simmons and Aaron Schatz assured the world that anyone who picked against the Patriots was just doing it as a joke or something. Hubris, immediately corrected, is always funny.

"If you didn’t know better, you’d think the Jets sent Bill Belichick north to destroy the Patriots from within. On a day when they could have had impact players David Terrell or Koren Robinson..they took Georgia defensive tackle Richard Seymour, who had 1 1/2 sacks last season in the pass-happy SEC and is too tall to play tackle at 6-6 and too slow to play defensive end. This genius move was followed by trading out of a spot where they could have gotten the last decent receiver in Robert Ferguson and settled for tackle Matt Light, who will not help any time soon."

"If you didn’t know better, you’d think the Jets sent Bill Belichick north to destroy the Patriots from within. On a day when they could have had impact players David Terrell or Koren Robinson..they took Georgia defensive tackle Richard Seymour, who had 1 1/2 sacks last season in the pass-happy SEC and is too tall to play tackle at 6-6 and too slow to play defensive end. This genius move was followed by trading out of a spot where they could have gotten the last decent receiver in Robert Ferguson and settled for tackle Matt Light, who will not help any time soon."

So....for those of us who have never heard of any of those names, what happened?

So....for those of us who have never heard of any of those names, what happened?

Seymour played in 5 straight Pro Bowls (as both a tackle and a defensive end), Light played in two, and both were contributors from the start of their careers. Robinson had one good year, Terrell and Ferguson did very little. And of course Belichick destroyed the Patriots so thoroughly that they won three Super Bowls and have been a contender almost every year since he got there.

So....for those of us who have never heard of any of those names, what happened?

Seymour was one of the best players in the league, Light was a top-10 left tackle for a long time, Koren had a few very good years but was always a disappoint compared to his draft position, Terrell and Ferguson were never impact players.

One of the first things I ever posted on this site, in the old Transaction Oracle, was the opinion that the Pirates didn't do all that badly in the recent Jason Schmidt trade.

I think I was the lone dissenter in the Josh Hamilton/Edinson Volquez trade. "He's got a history of drugs, he's got a history of being injured, he's probably a flash in the pan that we'll never hear from again. Meanwhile Volquez was part of DVD!!!!"

I also remember a long Posnanski article lamenting how the Royals could trade a sweet swing like Michael Tucker for a guy that swung at everything like Jermaine Dye.

I think I was the lone dissenter in the Josh Hamilton/Edinson Volquez trade. "He's got a history of drugs, he's got a history of being injured, he's probably a flash in the pan that we'll never hear from again. Meanwhile Volquez was part of DVD!!!!"

I don't know if I was vocal, but I would have joined you on that tirade. There was nothing to suggest that what Hamilton did was repeatable, in my opinion. Trade him while his value was at it's highest.

I believe I've mentioned this before, but in 2000, after Jeff Cirillo went to the Colorado Rockies, one of the Mazeroski/Sporting News-type preview issues said that "it wouldn't be at all surprising" for Cirillo to bat .400. Reading that, I couldn't help feeling it would be a little bit surprising.

I traded FOR the NL flavor of Eric Milton... twice... in 2005 - it cost me the title... I recalculated the standings after the season and discovered that I would have won the league if I replaced Milton with exactly nothing, never mind that I traded Rickie Weeks for him.

Then, because I'm a degenerate gambler who figures you should throw good money after bad because your number is DUE, dammit, DUE -- I traded FOR him again in 2007... at least that year, he mercifully hurt himself and missed most of the season after 2 starts.... so I "won" the second time.

I've made lots of dumb predictions, mostly about small stuff. One that makes me laugh: Chris Lubanski might lead the bigs in triples some day. A strange prediction and wrong in many ways...
I made fun of tablets too. I'm likely to finally buy one this weekend.

Not baseball-related, but back in '78, in a fanzine review of Talking Heads' second album, I opined that anyone who took the band's cover of "Take Me to the River" as indicating any sort of real interest in funk/soul was living in a fantasy world.

Funny, I never listen to the radio, but had it on the other day trying to figure out weather/traffic, and that song came on... which naturally made me find "Remain in Light" (their 4th album) on my iPod and play it straight through. It made navigating the mid-March snow storm much more bearable.

It was reasonable in the context of the times. A total salary dump that looked like pretty much every other salary dump going down at the time (or now for that matter). I don't think you'll ever find me saying that it was a good trade for the Pirates just that it's what you expect in a deadline deal for an expensive, average player.

To that point in his career, Ramirez was a below-average 3B, 25, and not at all clear he was going to live up to his potential. He was already signed for the following season for $6 M (which was kinda big money in the Pirates' eyes). Lofton was on a 1-year contract and designed to be shifted at the deadline -- as I recall, Pirates fans were pretty annoyed that Sanders and Stairs weren't also shipped out. The Pirates got back a regarded (although fading) prospect in Bobby Hill and a pitcher.

One week after that trade, the Reds traded Aaron Boone -- a league average 3B albeit older than Ramirez -- costing about the same as Ramirez (hard to say as he would have been going to arb if he hadn't gotten hurt) and got back the fading prospect Brandon Claussen who gave 300 innings of 86 ERA+.

A couple of days before the Pirates traded Mike Williams for Frank Brooks. The day after that they traded Gonzalez and Sauerbeck for Brandon Lyon (which then all got turned back around). Two days later the White Sox traded some minor-leaguers (incl Frank Francisco) for Carl Everett. The Yanks traded Mondesi to the DBacks for David Delucci (lucky to get that much), the Mets traded Rey Sanchez for nothing. The DBacks traded Finley and Mayne for ... basically Koyie Hill. The Yanks traded Ventura for Crosby and Proctor. The Reds were able to trade Guillen to the A's for Harang although Harang didn't become good until 2005. And the year before the Sox had traded Lofton for a couple minors guys who never did anything.

It's probably too early to judge recent deadline trades but guys shifted for not obviously good return last year include Dempster, Soto, Broxton, Pence, Victorino, Liriano, Greinke, Scutaro, Hanley, Wandy, Infante and Sanchez, Myers and Happ and Lyon.

Now if you want to say salary dump trades are a bad idea, be my guest. Or you want to say you should never trade a major-leaguer under 27 be my guest. Heck, if you want to say that was at the lower end of the return you would expect in such a trade, be my guest. Or you want to say Littlefield should have been able to squeeze the desperate Cubs for more, be my guest. But the fact is that's the kind of return you would expect to get in trade for Aramis Ramirez then and it's about the kind of return you would expect to get in return for that version of Aramis Ramirez today -- a decent prospect and a piece (and Jose Hernandez to hold the fort for the rest of the season). Granted, sometimes you see trades like Swisher for Gio Gonzalez plus but sometimes you see trades like Swisher for Betemit.

Through age 25, ARam was at 263/312/441, 92 OPS+ in 2500 PA, good for 1.1 WAR. From 23-25 he was 270/319/466, 100 OPS+ in 1900 PA, good for 4.1 WAR including just 1.7 at age 25. He was a generally poor baserunner but had wrestled his way up to average defensively. Obviously he still had growth potential but nobody at that point would have projected him to put up a 129 OPS+ and 27 WAR over the next 9 seasons. And the Pirates only had (I think) one year of control left anyway. There were a number of folks (probably including Vlad) who felt ARam had been jerked around by the Pirates, played hurt, etc. and they were right about that but at the end of the day he was below-average, disappointing and "expensive."

The really weird thing about that trade is that apparently the Pirates didn't actually want either player. They tried to sneak Bruback off the 40-man and failed and they buried Hill in the minors (perhaps partly because they ended up with Freddy Sanchez after the Gonzalez-Lyon debacle).

Anyway, not my fault the 2003 Pirates considered $6 M a lot of money and traded away a guy who turned into a good player.

I made fun of tablets too. I'm likely to finally buy one this weekend.

I did too, and have been on the edge ready to get me a Nexus 7. But to be fair... 1. Bill Gates was touting tablets over a decade ago and it was during a period where I didn't trust Microsoft to ever do anything right. 2.The first windows tablets were junk. 3. The original concept was a mis step. Instead of concentrating on the user interface, they were concentrating on incorporating windows into a smaller computer which of course is already done with laptops.

It's a hard line to straddle though. If I and another person have a substantial disagreement on the value of a player, at some point the question becomes "by what process did each of us come to that conclusion?" And when the disagreement veers into the territory of elevating your favored process above the favored process of others, it's real easy for things to get personal if you're not careful.

And another poem on the subject of Luke Hochevar, which sadly I don't think I can blame anyone other than myself for producing

Hopes were high (though God knows why)
As Hochevar took the mound on Opening Day
That the label “ace” may stick to the first overall pick
But the Royals lost in the regular way, with shoddy baseball play
And the fans doth barely restrain their sick

Primey!

Takes me back to the days when The Score Bard would post here regularly. That was around the time BBPro wrote the AL West preview Shredder links to in #10.

This article should have just been the words "Pete Rose" repeated 11 times.

Nah, the name of that article is why Will Carrol was fired. I don't know if he was actually canned or if he left, but that incident clearly broke the relationship between him and BPro to an irreparable extent. Particularly the way Kahrl went to bat for Will, the only way he was staying after that was if he 1) was right, or 2) outed his source and his source was someone he should have trusted.

I give BPro a pass. Carrol had been important to them up until that point, his UTK articles gave people a reason to show up besides the stats and he was one of the big 3 that interacted with the regular media. The decision to make support of him the company line only really seems silly in retrospect.

edit: also, half those guys weren't there when Carrol was, and the ones who were weren't exactly the heavy hitters. Back then there was an entirely different crew running the show. Sheehan and Carrol are basically bloggers now. KG is with the Astros. Silver is doing his thing. Kahrl is with ESPN, right?